Join us now for the chapel hour coming to you from the campus of Bob Jones University. Today's message was preached during a Sunday morning worship service held on the university campus. Following the reading of the scripture from Joshua chapter 1, verses 1 through 8, our speaker will be Reverend Seth Mahenu, pastor of Faith Independent Baptist Church in Accra, Ghana. The title of his message is Three Principles for Attaining Good Success. Prior to reading the scripture lesson of the morning, the President has given me the privilege of introducing our esteemed baccalaureate speaker, Pastor Seth Moheno and his wife, Cecilia, have traveled to be here all the way from Ghana at the capital city of Craw, where their ministry is carried out for the Lord. Our speaker is One of those people that those of us who've been here very long at BJU can never forget. In 1985, he came to this campus and he finished undergraduate and graduate degrees as a part of the World Fund and went back to Ghana in 1991. There probably never was a harder working man on this campus as a student. Night and day, he was always perspiring, running across campus from job to class, responsibility one after another. Dedicated, conscientious, hardworking, called of God. His call of God came in a most unusual way. I'm looking into the faces this morning of men and women who one day will be called of God into what is called full-time Christian ministry. You don't know that yet, but you will be. Some of you will be, even as this man was called, not expecting to be. Some years ago, he was a layman working in accountancy related fields and a faithful member of his church. Through various circumstances, the church saw a mass exodus when Because his membership was primarily Nigerian, and they were deported from Ghana at that time, and the church went down to five people. He was one of them, and the layman of the church said, we'd like you to be our pastor. He thought he would step in for a little while and be their pastor, but the church grew to about 150 people, and he suddenly realized that he was called of God to be a pastor. He came to this country knowing he needed further formal training, and God led him here as a part of the World Fund. It was one of the best things that ever happened in my years as president of the university that God brought Seth Mohenu here. He was a rich blessing. He was a challenge to all of us by his life and his love for Christ. While he was here during those years, he had a child who died in Ghana, and he was unable to go back. He knows sorrow, he and his wife know what it is to have long years of separation as he was preparing for the task to which God now has so greatly prepared him. Not only is he pastor of the Faith Independent Baptist Church in Accra, he serves as chairman and lecturer at the Ghana Independent Baptist Institute, He serves as chairman of a church planting and missionary outreach board in Ghana. He is the founder of Christian School. He served in the national government in the Department of Higher Education for some years. He founded a vocational school as well. And as Dr. Tim Schorb wrote me a while back, Dr. Schorb was the founder of a missions organization called International Partnership Ministries, and he wrote this about our speaker. You probably know Brother Seth is serving as our regional director in Africa. He is doing a fantastic job. I don't know how he has time to do everything. He has so many responsibilities in addition to pastoring Faith Baptist Church. He seems to be the chairman of just about every committee that exists. In my travels around Africa over a period of 25 years, I've come to the conclusion there is no more outstanding fundamental leader in all of black Africa than Brother Seth Mohenu. We greatly rejoice to be in fellowship with him. We thank the Lord for his training at BJU. This is a man that all of us who knew him greatly love to this present hour. And we are blessed today to have the Mohenus here Their son, Sam, is a member of the seminary student body and is pastoring today a church in Simpsonville, our neighboring community, and is unable to be here to hear his father, a greatly blessed family, great servants of God. Would you please open your Bibles to the passage Pastor Moheno has requested, Joshua chapter one, the first eight verses. The very words of Jehovah God to his servant Joshua, words of promise and admonition, not only words to Joshua, but words to us, because the Holy Spirit, who gave us the infallible and inerrant word of God, has recorded this for our understanding. Now, after the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, It came to pass that the Lord spoke unto Joshua, the son of Nun, Moses' minister, saying, Moses, my servant, is dead. Now, therefore, arise and go over this Jordan, thou and all this people, unto the land to which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you, as I said unto Moses. From the wilderness and this Lebanon, even unto the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and unto the great sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be your coast. There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with thee. I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. Be strong. Some few months back, I received a letter from Dr. Stephen Jones. And when I opened it, I read just to the middle, and I saw there, you have been invited to preach at a baccalaureate of 2009. My heart stopped. I sat for some time and then called my wife and said, look at what Dr. Jones is trying to do to me. We have great preachers in the United States. He doesn't see any of them that are set in Africa. But I believe in the providence of God. And therefore, after much prayer, I accept her to come so that the Lord may be glorified. I take this opportunity to thank the Almighty God for ordering my life, but at a time like this, He has brought me to speak to his people. I'd like to thank the Joneses for their kindness, for their love, and for their willingness to stay in the vineyard of the Lord. Also, to thank faculty members who poured their lives in me many years ago while I was studying here. And I pray that God will richly reward them and all those who have impacted my life. As already read for hearing from Joshua chapter 1, We're going to take our text from the 8th verse. But before we read that again, let me say this. Moses loved the sin. He needed replacement. Joshua has worked with Moses for almost 40 years. So he knows the children of Israel well, how stubborn, how wicked they are. And yet the Lord taught it wise to advise him, to encourage him, so he would not go the way of Moses, that which caused him not to enter the promised land. So in verse 5, the Lord said, as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee. The saints be strong and of good courage. Verse 7, be thou strong and very courageous. And verse 9, be strong. and of good courage. Beloved, soon some of you will be leaving Bob Joyce University and enter the world of business. Some of you will be pastors, accountants, engineers, and so on and so forth. While here you have been taught how to live, and now the time has come for you to go there and live it for others to see." But in advising Joshua, the Lord said to him, This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth. Thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein. For then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success. The theme for our message this morning is the three principles for attaining good success as a Christian. There is a common desire within every person to feel successful in life. Nobody wants to fail. whether it is in life, in business, employment, or church. But sadly, we often measure our worth on the basis of how successful we live. By the world standard, success often means luxury, wealth, possessions, achievements, fame, beauty, and brain. But even those who have supposedly achieved some of these successes are still not happy. God's standard of measurement is not like the world's standard. His formula works for every person in every situation, whether it is in school, at work, at home, at church, or wherever. But beloved, the pathway to good sources cannot be traveled by anyone who does not practice God's formula. God qualified the kind of sources Joshua will have. He said good sources, which means there is bad sources. And that source is given by the world. Beloved, I want us to consider this morning These three principles for attaining good success as a Christian. Number one, to have good success, the word of God must not depart from your mouth. You are to walk and you are to talk about it Deuteronomy 6-7 says, And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children. Thou shalt talk of them when thou sitest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. The word of God should not depart from your mouth. It needs to be part of your everyday life. You need to memorize it in Psalm 119 and verse 11, that what have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee. The principle is simple. Saturate your mind and your thoughts with the Word of God and to become part of your speech. It will not depart from your mouth. If you saturate your mind with something else, that is what will come out of your speech as well. In Proverbs 23, 7, For as he thinketh with thee himself, so is he. Matthew 12, 34, Out of the abundance of the heart their mouth speaketh. If the Word of God is to come out of your mouth, it must first fill your heart. And if man's heart is filled with the Word of God, sin will be minimized, wickedness will fade away, and church music will be what God has commanded in Ephesians 5, verses 19 and 20. But we should sing hymns and spiritual songs and psalms and that is what we will do. And the effect of that church split will be minimized because true love will permeate the church of Jesus Christ. People will hate abortion because they will fear the Lord and homosexuality would not be accepted by a whole nation. Beloved, many believers in the underground church in Russia memorize the scriptures. They couldn't have the full Bible like we have it today. They're lifeless. They're God's They memorize all and they pass it on. A man called George von Imper is called the walking Bible because he memorized the whole of the New Testament. And we can do it too. Beloved, we need to memorize the Word of God We need to allow the Word of God to have lodging on our hearts if we want to have good sources. Young people, you will be leaving this place soon into that world. Some of you, when you were here, you were forced before you read your Bible Some, you were false before you had your devotions. If that is your case, then I implore you today and I advise you today, that what you saw your brothers and sisters doing in the dormitory, reading their Bibles and praying, you should cultivate that habit today. Because the only way by which you can attain success is by reading and memorizing and saturating yourself with the Word of God. Of course, if you want to take the other route, then the world can help you. But having come here, by the providence of God, and you have been told how to live, I believe you have to go there and allow the Word of God to lead you in everything. Beloved, the Word of God is the only thing that can make us what God wants us to be. If you are a child of God, then God should be your all in all. Today, the church is suffering because many want to live that easy, easy life. So they do their own thing. And they don't allow the Word of God to permeate their lives. But secondly, the Lord said to Joshua, you must also meditate on it day and night. You are to think about it. Psalm 1 and verse 2, but his delight is in the law of the Lord. And it is the law that he meditates day and night. Psalm 119 verse 97 says, O how I love thy law! It is my meditation all the day. In Hebrew, the meaning of the term is to re-read it over and over again. So God commands us to remember his word by rereading it over and over again to our souls, pondering over it. When we talk about meditation in the Christian context, meditation differs from the approach of New Age and Eastern philosophies. We seek to empty the mind or refuse or focus on a single word or phrase to achieve a mystical experience. But it is not what we are talking about. The Scripture makes it clear we should strive to fill our minds and our hearts with the Word of God. so that we may better understand his will for our lives. This requires that we read, re-read the text, and then take time to contemplate its meaning. Meditating on the Word of God is thinking about the Word with purpose. Our attitude needs to be one of curiosity and anticipation. We are striving to know and obey the will of our Sovereign Creator and Eternal Father. Meditating on the Word of God is not optional for success. It is a requirement. And it is the most important thing that we need to impact not only ourselves, but the lives of others as well. I read a story about a man a godly man indeed, who had memorized the entire book of Hebrews. And I remember thinking, he's a godly man to have done that. But the more I thought about it, I had to change my thinking to, he's a godly man because he has done that. It is only the godly man who would desire to memorize the Word of God. I remember when I was a student here, when it comes to Bible memorization, we don't sleep. We have to write it on pieces of papers and everywhere we go we memorize them. We study them. I see if we are sometimes worrying our minds because you see all the place. I think some of you are doing that now because you need to memorize the Word of God. Beloved, do you know what glorifies my heart? At any school, when you come, whether you are an engineer, or an accountant, or an English major, you have to do what we call doctrines, so that you can memorize the Word of God. You have to take some Bible courses. And let me say this, Those of you who are graduating today or within the week, if you were forced to take Bible courses and doctrines, then you are leaving this university with a bad success. But if you voluntarily love the Word of God, and therefore you took those courses with joy on your heart, believing that Jesus Christ is the author of that book, then I tell you, you are leaving this place chest high with a good success. The prophet Haggai in Haggai chapter 1 verse 7 says, consider your ways Luke 9, verse 44, tells us, that is saying, sing down into your ears. Beloved, God would not bless our efforts at witnessing unless we use His Word. God would never honor our words as evangelists, preachers, missionaries, or office workers. Unless our words revolve around His Word, they will not honor our arguments. How persuasive they may be! It does not honor our passion or our zeal if it does not revolve around Jesus Christ and His Word. It must be absorbed into every fiber of our being by reading and meditating on it. Beloved, If we have the possession and the perception and the perseverance in His Word, then His promises will be seen and we will apply them to our lives because He has assured us that He is in the battle with us. So many times we understand that we have redemption and we look forward to the beauty of heaven, but we are ignorant of so much that is in heaven. We fail to grasp all that God has prepared for us on this earth. 2 Peter 1, verses 3 and 4 tells us, According as this divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue. whereby are given unto us exceeding great precious promises. How can we know the promises of God and how can we claim them if we don't study the Word of God? The God we know through Jesus Christ is a God of promise. His promises Our merited blessings, some are conditional, some unexplainable, but all are a result of God's grace. His promises are guaranteed through the total victory won in Jesus Christ. There are yes and amens in Jesus. In Christ alone we find fulfillment of each promise, and in Him we become recipients of His grace. Let us look at some of those promises. He has promised to supply every need we have. Philippians 4.9 My God shall supply all your needs according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. Notice, God has concerned himself only to the extent of our needs. That includes food, clothing, shelter, companionship, love, and salvation through Jesus Christ. It would not include all the things we think we need, the luxuries that we have come to think as needs. God has promised that His grace is sufficient for us. 2 Corinthians 12, 9. In Ephesians 2, 8, it says, He has made provision for salvation by His grace through faith. It is through an obedient faith that we have access into the grace of God according to Romans chapter 5 and verse 2. 1 Corinthians 13 gives us the assurance that God has promised that His children will not be overtaken by temptation. Instead, he assures us that a way of escape has been made for us. Jude wrote, Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory. Beloved, He has prepared a way for us, and it is for us to heed and to live according to His ways. God has also promised us a victory over death. The first resurrection by Jesus Christ is a way of assuring us that we shall also be resurrected. And Christ said, As I live, ye shall live also. Peter said, This Jesus hath God raised up whereof we are witnesses. Acts 2.32. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, For I deliver unto you, first of all, that which also I receive, how that Christ died, for our sins according to the scripture and that he was buried and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures and in a letter verse he said but thanks be to God which gives us a victory through our Lord Jesus Christ beloved God has promised that all things work together for good to those that love and serve Him faithfully. Romans 8, 28. It may be difficult for us to comprehend and fully grasp how we are able to accomplish these things. But God has promised, and He will deliver. God has again promised his people eternal life, John 10, 28, 29, and I give unto them eternal life. And they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father who gave them to me is greater than all and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. We are secured in Jesus. Beloved, the center of all this admonition is the Lord Jesus Christ, the author of this book, the man who was born of a virgin. The man who never attended school but has no knowledgeable passing on the face of the earth than him. He wrote not a single book. The books written about him can fill libraries. He turned water into wine. He caused the blind to see, the lame to walk. The boisterous sea was calmed down by Him, and He is the Savior we are talking about. He was crucified. He died. He was buried. The day he triumphantly came out from the grave and won victory over death for us. Today, he's sitting at the right-hand side of the Father, interceding for you and me. And he said, someday he will come back again to receive us unto himself. He said to the disciples, let not your heart be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions, if it were not so, I would not have told you. I go to prepare a place for you, and if I prepare a place for you, I'll come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also." If this Jesus is not the one you know, then I implore you to invest your life in Him today, because He is the only one who can give you good success. Thirdly, you must do everything written in this book to obey His commands fully and to act by it. Ezra 710 For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach in Ezra's parables and judgments. James 1, 22-25, But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any man be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass. For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed." Beloved, some confuse biblical knowledge with spiritual maturity. Thinking that the depth of their knowledge determines how good a Christian they are? That was a trap of the Pharisees. They fell into that during the time of Jesus Christ. They were very knowledgeable of the law. But Jesus said they neglected the weightier provisions of the law. So beloved, we need to be practical Christians and not theoretical Christians. We need to go out there and let the world know that we know Jesus. One of the disciples first went to Antioch. They never told the people, oh beloved, we were with Jesus, here we are, we want to teach you his word. They said when the people heard and saw their attitude, they concluded that these men have been with Jesus. And this is what we need to do. in the way we dress, the way we speak, the way we interact with people. Brother, these days when I walk by the streets in my country, I feel so sick. You see young men dressed And their pants is so low that you see their underwears, and they say, autofista. They are trying to bring something else into society. But when I came to the United States, the issue was not different at all. So it's a worldwide phenomenon. But we as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, our way of dressing, our way of life should be different from that of the world. So that you can come to us and ask, but what makes the difference? And we will tell them, because we have seen the incredible Jesus. We need to live a practical Christian life. We know the Word of God, but we fail to practice it. This applies to many Christians today. Many Christians are theoretical Christians and not practical Christians. We should expect transformation of our behavior as we fill our hearts with the Word of God through meditation. Psalm 19, verse 14 tells us, let the word of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. David acts knowing that flowing from the heart is the word of our mouth and the actions of our lives. The purpose of meditation is not just knowledge, but obedience, not only to know, but to do. As meditation shapes us as Christians, it will bring blessings. As we move from meditation on the Word of God to living the Word of God, our way will be prosperous and we will have good sources. This is the real prosperity message, not what we hear on our televisions and radios these days, not a message that God wants every person to be rich quick. God has not promised to make us prosperous in worldly things just because we want them. His promises to us is to bless us spiritually, to bless our lives spiritually, and endow us with sources through understanding and application of his word. God will keep us as we keep his commandments. Some of you graduating students have had good success, not because you are finishing with cum laude or magna cum laude or whatever it is, but because you allowed Jesus Christ to lead you through your education. And what do you have there? When you go out there, let the people know that it was given to you by Jesus. Beloved, Joshua's life demonstrate that he lives according to the teachings of the Law of Moses, the only one of the Word of God in written form then. This alone explains the victories he achieved in battle and the sources that marked his entire career. in one of his farewell addresses to the nation before he died, he urged the people to leave in submission to the Scriptures. Joshua 23, verse 6. Tragically, they heeded this charge only a short time. I believe As Christians, we will strive to allow the Word of God to lead us in everything. Today, the church is suffering. Today, the church is sick. Because many are turning from the old-fashioned gospel to their own gospels. Because today many are not singing the old-fashioned hymns, but they are singing the CCMs. I don't know what God is saying in heaven at this time, but He might be weeping. because Christendom is going into the dungeons. But God expects you and I to go there and tell them Jesus is coming again. So we may change our lives, so we may invest our lives in him by living the practical Christian life. In Joshua 24 15, a popular verse that when you go to homes, you see written there, after me and my house, we will serve the Lord. But whether they are serving the Lord or not is another thing. In this verse, Joshua asks the people to choose between God and the devil. Today, the compromising situation of the church is more serious than we think. This is a time for us to also take a stand, either to follow God in truth and in spirit, or to follow the modern trends of prosperity gospel, the contemporary music, and the gimmicks that goes with them. Can you also say, run for me and my house. We will follow the Lord Jesus Christ in the old fashioned way. Can you? The Lord has promised you. He said he will never leave you nor forsake you. He said to Joshua, As I walk with Moses, I will be with you, and surely he will be with you. He will not suffer you to be moved. He that is ready will not slumber. And let me conclude with this psalm. Psalm 121. The psalmist said, I'll lift up my eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth. He will not suffer thy foot to be moved. He that keepeth thee would not slumber The Lord is thy keeper. The Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand. The sun shall not smile thee by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil. Beloved, he shall preserve thy soul. The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this day forth and even forevermore. If only you will stay in His Word, you will memorize His Word, and you will tend to do according to His will. Glory and honor will crown every effort of yours until Jesus comes. Hallelujah. Let us pray. Our Father, We are so grateful for your word that is sharper than any two-edged sword. You are in control of every affairs of man. You have educated us as to how we can have good success. It is our prayer that as these young people Leave the walls of this university and gather in the world. You will protect them. You will guide them. You will sustain them and cause them to memorize your word and to live by it. Like the Beroean church, let us search the scriptures and know the truths therein. So those who pour their lives in them, We also gain crowns in heaven when we get there. We bless you because you love us so much. For in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, we pray with thanksgiving. Amen. And of a good courage, for under this people shall thou divide for an inheritance the land which I swear unto their fathers to give them. Only be thou strong and very courageous. that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law which Moses my servant commanded thee, turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest. This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein. For then shalt thou make thy way prosperous, and then shalt thou have good success. For a cassette or compact disc copy of today's message, send a check for $6 to Campus Store, Bob Jones University, Greenville, South Carolina 29614. Be sure to mention the name of the speaker and today's date. The Chapel Hour has been sponsored by Bob Jones University.